Because the memorabilia market is driven by a passion for
the home team, Mr. Martin decided to tap a service that could
provide "spot market" online buys. So he bought space on five city
sites--Minneapolis, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas and Los Angeles--from the 14
offered by Digital City.

"Sports is followed on a regionalized basis," said Mr.
Martin, whose Digital City program launched May 6. "From our
standpoint, the problem with the Internet is it's way too broad, and you
can't focus."

Smaller local or regional advertisers have long
considered the Internet "the great equalizer," an advertising medium
that can level the playing field and make even small companies
appear large. But does it deliver sales?

For companies like Collectors Resource, near-term sales
aren't as important as building brand awareness in new
markets.

Bruce Travel, a three-store travel agency based in
Hallandale, Fla., launched its Web site on local provider Power Images'
Leisure Web mall two years
ago. Since that time, non-local traffic has grown to 97% of the
hits the site receives, said VP Gary Cossin. The company turns
about 5% of that traffic into sales.

In addition to listings on search engines, the site gets
traffic from its association with such companies as Blockbuster
Video, The Sports Authority and the Miami Dolphins, each of whom
are part of another Power Images site, Florida
Marketplace.

LINKS WITH 4 CRUISE LINES

Though Mr. Cossin admits he's "really not breaking large
numbers" with Internet sales (he doesn't take credit cards online),
he's linked with four major cruise lines.

Within 10 years, 35% of his sales will be from the Internet,
he predicted.

"We wanted to get our niche, which is cruises, onto the Web
into the next century," said Mr. Cossin. "I figure in 10 years,
people will be doing this at home from their TVs, instead of getting
up and going to a travel agency."

At Carnival Airlines, a Fort Lauderdale-based company
with a strong local presence and service to the Northeast, the
hope was to create a Digital City site that could increase the
company's Florida image, while also boosting its awareness up north,
said Cindy Christen, manager of sales promotion for the
airline.

BUILDING A DATABASE

The move to Digital City followed a banner ad on an AOL
travel section in February. The resulting traffic amounted to
more than 1,000 e-mail addresses added to the database daily for
two weeks, and 700 telephone calls from people responding to a
promotional offer, she said.

As a regional carrier, Carnival executives are not as
concerned that consumers outside their traffic cities aren't aware
of the company, said Ms. Christen. What the company needed was
a "virtual salesperson" who would be available 24 hours
daily.

"It was building up our e-mail base," she said. "It was very
effective."